Dispatch From The Desert #3

That is the villa next door to Dad's. As you can see, it's filthy. It's also empty, which was why I took the photo--the house on the other side is occupied, and I have a feeling they would not appreciate me taking a picture of their home. Which brings me to the topic of the day--Cairo, in general, is a dirty city. Egyptians, in general, are not a dirty people.

It's not that people don't take pride in what they have, because they do. It's just that in a city of millions (14 Million was the last count I heard), where there the roads are clogged with vehicles belching God knows what into the air, where one of the largest deserts in the world is all around you, and where many smaller secondary streets aren't even paved, it's impossible to keep things like buildings clean. If you look closely at the house, you will see several lighter-colored streaks near the top, and one really long one running down the side of the room with all the windows. That is from water leaking from the roof, and clearing away some of the dirt. The fact is, it's just impossible to keep things clean, especially when so much of the outside design of buildings includes textured stucco, which holds dirt like mad, and which is, due to its texture, nearly impossible to keep clean. I used that house as an example, but remember that Dad's villa is in the newly created suburb of 6th of October-all the dirt on that house is from dust storms which come in from the desert, which is where we are. In the city, it's dozens of times worse, with many buildings looking almost black from a combination of dust, soot, exhaust, and everything else that nature and man can devise. I can honestly say that I have seen three really, really clean buildings in all of my visits to Cairo. They are the American Embassy, the English Embassy, and the Canadian Embassy. They, too, have used stucco, but they smoothed it out, so it's easier to clean, and the last time I was at one of the embassies, which was last year, there was a crew working on a scaffold on the west wall, scrub buckets in hand, hoses draped over the scaffolding, and no doubt thinking the American Ambassador and his staff are crazy for having them clean something which will, inside of four weeks, be filthy again. The big international hotels, like the Sheratons and the Hiltons, have used a clever method to keep the building looking clean--they are either entirely faced with marble or a similar stone which doesn't hold dirt, or they use colored stucco--reddish, desert colored stucco is popular because you cannot easily tell when it's dirty. Besides, when a building has 30 or 40 floors, no one can tell what anything above about the 10th floor looks like, anyway.

Unfortuately, because the buildings are dirty, people who visit and don't take time to think about the circumstances of the placement of the city tend to assume that the Egyptian people are dirty, as well. That's not true. There are, of course, people, mostly fellahin, who do not have the opportunity to bathe daily, because they live in small villages where water must be hand-drawn from a well which is shared with many others. I have heard people say horrible things about those people--they are pigs, they stink, they reek of body odor, etc. For those people, I can only say that if you lived in a mud hut, with no bathroom, no hot water, no washing machine, and not even money for deodorant, you'd probably smell by the end of a hot day, as well. Westerners simply cannot hold people in a third world country to their own personal standards of hygiene--the people do the best they can. People who live in the city tend to live in crowded buildings in flats of varying size. They do bathe as often as they can, generally every other day, because water is very expensive, as are the water heaters for heating water. Additionally many of those small flats only have a small shower, and a water heater which holds, at most, enough water for a five minute shower. Consider that there are probably at least four or five people sharing that flat, and you can see the problems. I think we Westerners, with large homes, huge bathrooms, and water heaters which hold enough for a 45 minute shower tend to forget those things. But I still say the people are clean--they wash as often as possible, use deodorant and shampoo when they can afford it (and plain water and soap if they cannot), and take pride in themselves and their homes. If a visiting busybody from Wisconsin could see inside one of the tiny flats in one of the filthy buidings, she would find a home which is cared for proudly--the furniture might be sparse, and old, but it will be as clean as the homemaker can make it. The tiles in the kitchen and bathroom will be clean, wiped down daily, even if it's only with cold water and a cloth. The floor will be swept, and if there are rugs, they will have been aired on the balcony, and beaten with a rug beater, then replaced with the fringes lined up as neatly as possible. And the laundry, usually washed by hand in the sink, since washing machines are a luxury, will be well-scrubbed, and hanging from a line on the balcony, drying in the sun. I must admit, I am always amazed at how white the white clothing seen hanging all over the place is. I really don't know, if I had such limited resources, if I could keep my whites looking that clean.

So yes, the city is dirty, the roads are dirty, the cars are dirty, but it's more to do with the geographical placement of the city and the huge number of inhabitants and vehicles than anything else. And some people are dirty, too, but they are so extremely poor, that they do the best they can, and should not be judged as we would judge our neighbors at home. The people are proud. Even if they wear very old clothing, it's cleaned and pressed. I have seen shoes so old they are one false step away from falling off the owner's feet, but they have been carefully cleaned to look as nice as possible. People in slightly better circumstances, logically, do slightly better. I guess my main point is that being surrounded by dirt doesn't make you a bad person, and neither does not being able to better your circumstances. As I explained before, people, in general, live hand to mouth, and that's true for many, many people. They cannot always afford luxuries, so they do the very best they can.

And there's one more thing. The vast majority of the poor people and of the lower middle class, which is mainly who I have talked about here, are very devout Muslims. That means that they pray five times daily. And part of the preparation for praying is a ritual cleansing. If water is available, they wash their faces, their necks, ears, hands and forearms, and feet. (In the absence of water, such as in the desert, this ritual cleansing is done with sand.) They go before Allah as clean as they can be. How can you say someone is a dirty pig when they care enough to cleanse themselves before bowing to God? The answer is simple: you cannot.

At home, I often see people with greasy lanky hair, food-covered clothing, and skin so dirty that their skin appears ashy colored. Those people have much more than the people here do. So the next time someone tells you Egyptians are dirty people, kindly remember what I've said. And take a look around you the next time you're at Wal-Mart. You'll see what I mean.